Inside An Architect’s Surprising California Bungalow Renovation
Architecture
Inside ‘St Neots’ house by Margo Studio.
Sliding doors open the living and dining area to an elevated deck.
Columns tiled in original 1960s brown glazed tiles helped set the tone for the interiors.
The living room and kitchen is stepped up with a split-level to maximise vertical space.
The balustrade brings in pops of blue. Print by Siri Hayes.
The matching blue pantry.
Plywood joinery also features throughout.
The lower-ground bathroom.
The bungalow’s existing brick walls have been retained.
The main bedroom.
Peachy tiles make the ensuite a calming sanctury.
A concrete pool acts as a retaining wall creating lower and upper sections of the backyard.
Architect and Margo Studio director Amy Carroll’s 1927 red brick bungalow is full of surprises.
‘Many have commented about how the house keeps unfolding and surprising you again and again as you move through it,’ Amy says.
She and her husband purchased the Northcote home in 2012, after it had been owned by one family for more than 60 years.
‘It was in very good condition with a pristine renovation circa 1960,’ she adds.
‘Being owned by a family of Italian heritage, the house had been based around food production + cooking. The large yard was mostly covered up vegie plots and lots of old fruit trees — it felt like a city orchard — and lots of concrete!’
Despite it’s ‘lovely feel’, the house needed an immediate update. They reconfigured the floor plan to improve its orientation and liveability for their growing family (now with teen twins and a nine-year-old daughter), before embarking on a more comprehensive renovation in 2019.
During this time, they’d grown to appreciate the home’s amazing hilltop views and eastern aspect towards the Dandenongs — something they wanted to embrace in the redesign.
‘The design is entirely responsive, so all the inspiration was already there: the character and story of the existing house, the site and the neighbourhood,’ Amy adds.
‘We wanted to house to reflect its different chapters, importantly the fact that it was in Northcote which had (and has) a huge population of post war immigrant families, especially from Italy and Greece.’
The existing sunroom with a terrazzo floor set the tone for the resulting interiors. While the room couldn’t be retained, Amy decided to replicate it in a border that defines the edge of the existing house, as a new split-level living room helped maximise views and vertical space.
A cathedral ceiling internally created the height required for stepping up, as new 1970s-style tiled columns were added to the elevated space.
‘Clad in white and with a strong connection to the sky, this volume became a “cloud like” shell with the kitchen and pantry inserted within,’ Amy says.
‘This is really the centre of the house, connecting old and new, expanding the existing living area with a fireplace and daybed.’
The slightly unconventional floor plan is defined by a series of neat and flexible zones. Upstairs is dedicated to the communal areas, as the kids’ spaces are located downstairs, which has more of a quiet and cosy energy with pale timber floors.
Amy says she’s most proud that the renovation does everything she wanted it to do and more.
‘It feels new but like it’s always been there,’ Amy says.
‘And now there is a direct view when you walk into the house, down to the beautiful 60-plus year old orange tree in the centre of the backyard.’